This type of behavior has been pointed out and highlighted by victim organizations for years now, and we predicted that the Twin Cities would behave no differently and they aren’t.

The need for more disclosure by church figures has been clear for years. Many rightly believe that church officials have not, and are not, being held accountable for irresponsible deeds and crimes that other officials in other organizations would be.

For decades, our justice system has erred on the side of protecting church officials in these cases, sometimes treading lightly for fear of alienating a large institution. The results have been – and continue to be – disastrous.

The archdiocese spends an enormous amount of funds on lawyers who continue to file delays of all sorts, knowing as all attorneys do, that the longer you can string things out, the more likely that the atmosphere, and or decisions that follow, will be more favorable to your case.

We commend the court for still requiring the archdiocese to turn over documents, but ask the people to be aware of this situation as it develops, and to see what action the Archdiocese will take to once again not really open the door and let the light in.

(SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. We’ve been around for 25 years and have more than 15,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)

After seeing news coverage of the president’s meeting with the pope today, 3-27-14, I can only say that I think that most leaders (including current and past presidents of the United States) and other leaders in the world most often seem to have “erred on the side of protecting church officials in these cases, sometimes treading lightly for fear of alienating a large institution”, rather than seeking and securing healing for victims who are survivors of sexual abuse by catholic clergy AND seem “afraid” to bring the church to task and literally afraid to CRITICIZE the catholic leader and leaders for most surely evading all “laws” including GOD’s as informed us by none other than Christ, in Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:42 and Luke 17:2, when it comes to stopping these criminals and when it comes to the pope’s and vatican’s hindrance of these catholic criminals being found and brought to justice. I truly am surprised at this phenomenon. It seems rather pathetic and appalling that any legitimately elected world leaders, would be afraid of criticizing the church and its handling of this specific issue. Honestly? It reminds me of people who did not, and could not bring themselves to criticize Adolf Hitler. Are…and were they, crazy??? I know it took a long time for the whole world to realize that Hitler had to be stopped, but, it certainly did not take 25 years for the Allies to realize and act on that fact.

I look forward to the day, when our own President’s character and integrity and courage are such that the President will publicly ask the pope and the catholic hierarchy to comply with demands of the decent people of the world, to IMMEDIATELYHELP, not hinder, putting an end to these egregious, heinous crimes against humanity. To my way of thinking, pope francis’ criticism of how the U.S. is handling the subject of gay marriage, is just an incredibly RUDE criticism of Americans (and our president and country) in light of the fact that the pope or perhaps the reporters in the media, both, have intimidated (read, thus actually “attacked” via intimidation) Americans and catholic Americans in particular by being first in their meeting, to criticize our legal system and dissemble non-catholic and catholic world leaders, alike, from criticizing the pope and catholic heirarchy for allowing this horrible scourge of catholic clergy CHILDSEXUALRAPEANDABUSE to not only exist, but to continue unabated, for all practical purposes, for over a quarter of a century in recent history. THAT IS TOOLONG! I truly long for other world leaders and our president, to have the courage to say to the pope and all catholic priests and enabling laity: NO MOREEXCUSES!